Month: October, 2014

Perhaps the look on Jeff Cox’s face sums up the day as talking head after talking head stepped up to reassure investors that the market is not beholden to central banks despite the most in-your-face example of it since the PPT in 2008..

In Rome to promote “a conversation about a new covenant, an interreligious peace treaty,” White said we need to overcome the cynicism that questions whether anything new and effective can be done in this area. Our time is different, says White, “when the violence proliferated so explicitly in the name of God, that can come into this ‘convert or die’ type of energy, that is the urgency that is new.” “We have to actually go beyond photo opportunities, beyond interfaith conferences, and say: What would our agreement look like in terms of an interreligious fatwa against violence?” White believes Rome is important because it is “an address by which people are projecting perhaps on to Pope Francis, the Catholic Church, but again the archetype of Saint Francis” a space where effective dialogue can take place. “So I believe that a number of the world’s religious leaders are dropping through Rome more than ever before, and appealing for that type of neutral brokerage, a >>>third<<< side,” White said.

His words came during an October 10th encounter at the Casa Santa Marta with members of the community founded by Evangelical leader Tony Palmer who was killed in a road accident last July. Palmer became friends with Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio when he worked in Buenos Aires as international ecumenical officer of the Communion of Episcopal Evangelical Churches.

The Beehive State will welcome the world’s largest and most historic interfaith gathering to Salt Lake City in 2015.

This is the first time in 22 years the Parliament of the Word’s Religions has voted to hold its conference in the United States.

“America is the home base of the interfaith movement, and it’s about time the Parliament come back home,” Parliament Chair Imam Abdul Malik Mujahid said in an announcement.

Reid Neilson, managing director of the LDS Church’s Historian Department, wrote his doctoral dissertation on the Parliament. Neilson pointed out the significance of the Parliament’s choice of Salt Lake City, the global center for the Church.

“This says the Church is being taken seriously,” Neilson said. “We are a global face and should be included in any major global conversation.”

When Apple and Google unveiled new encryption schemes last month, law enforcement officials complained that they wouldn’t be able to unlock evidence on criminals’ digital devices. What they didn’t say is that there are already methods to bypass encryption, thanks to off-the-shelf digital implants readily available to the smallest national agencies and the largest city police forces — easy-to-use software that takes over and monitors digital devices in real time, according to documents obtained by The Intercept.

We’re publishing in full, for the first time, manuals explaining the prominent commercial implant software “Remote Control System,” manufactured by the Italian company Hacking Team. Despite FBI director James Comey’s dire warnings about the impact of widespread data scrambling — “criminals and terrorists would like nothing more,” he declared — Hacking Team explicitly promises on its website that its software can “defeat encryption.”

The manuals describe Hacking Team’s software for government technicians and analysts, showing how it can activate cameras, exfiltrate emails, record Skype calls, log typing, and collect passwords on targeted devices. They also catalog a range of pre-bottled techniques for infecting those devices using wifi networks, USB sticks, streaming video, and email attachments to deliver viral installers. With a few clicks of a mouse, even a lightly trained technician can build a software agent that can infect and monitor a device, then upload captured data at unobtrusive times using a stealthy network of proxy servers, all without leaving a trace. That, at least, is what Hacking Team’s manuals claim as the company tries to distinguish its offerings in the global marketplace for government hacking software.

Hacking Team’s efforts include a visible push into the U.S. Though Remote Control System is sold around the world — suspected clients include small governments in dozens of countries, from Ethiopia to Kazakhstan to Saudi Arabia to Mexico to Oman — the company keeps one of its three listed worldwide offices in Annapolis, Maryland, on the edge of the federal intelligence and law-enforcement cluster around the nation’s capital; has sent representatives to American homeland security trade shows and conferences, where it has led training seminars like “Cyber Intelligence Solutions to Data Encryption” for police; and has even taken an investment from a firm headed by America’s former ambassador to Italy. The United States is also, according to two separate research teams, far and away Hacking Team’s top nexus for servers, hosting upwards of 100 such systems, roughly a fifth of all its servers globally.

Police were reportedly informed about the killing when Marin called them around 2:45 p.m. The report said when officers arrived, they found Marin jogging with a long knife covered in blood.

Reports of the Oklahoma beheading came one day after a man with a history of psychiatric problems beheaded his mother in her Long Island, N.Y., apartment and dragged the body and head out onto a street, where onlookers initially thought they were witnessing a macabre Halloween prank, police and witnesses said.

Oklahoma police said the beheading victim is the son is a highway patrol trooper, but that does not appear to be a motive.

“There is no doubt that what we saw is an accurate reflection of what they think. That’s the reason they won’t offer an apology. Everybody knows it’s how the president thinks about the Israeli leadership under (Israeli Finance Minister Yair) Lapid, under Bibi,” said Krauthammer, a syndicated columnist, referencing the prime minister’s nickname.

The Atlantic reported on Tuesday that a senior White House official called Netanyahu a “chickens..t” who was “scared to launch wars,” adding he was only interested in “protecting himself from political defeat.”

“What the Israelis are worried about, more than anything else, is that Obama cuts a bad deal with Iran. The deadline is in three weeks. And, no one is sure what’s going to happen,” Krauthammer said.

“If there is a deal, Iran will be a threshold nuclear power, meaning it’ll be three months away, four months away, at any time it wants in the future, of getting a nuke. And, that, for Israel, would be an existential threat,” he said.

hough the White House quickly backtracked the statement, Krauthammer said it was part of a larger issue about the Obama administration’s inability to successfully navigate foreign policy, adding the U.S. had strained relations with Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, and with Egypt.

“The foreign policy of the U.S., no matter if you’re a man of the left or a man on the right, however you see this, is at it’s lowest ebb with a president who promised to improve relations” he said. “They are at their low ebb everywhere. This is a measure of his incompetence”

The tension between Obama and Netanyahu exhibited the “worst relations between administrations, Israeli and American, probably in 50 years,” Krauthammer said, adding that Israel’s prime minister was concerned with how the U.S. would approach negotiations with Iran over its nuclear weapons program.

Considering the BOJ’s overnight move, he was absolutely correct.

Back in late September, we posted what Albert Edwards thought at the time was “The Most Important Chart For Investors” which was quite simply, a chart of the USDJPY. Here is the punchline of what he said:

We have long believed that investors ignore Japan at their peril. Time and time again, investors have missed major global market trends that have been catalysed by Japan. We have felt for some time that a fragile Chinese economy could be pushed over the edge by a further yen devaluation – in many ways a replay of the Asian crisis of 1997. And just as the Chinese real economy data has taken a turn for the worse in August, the yen has slipped below a key 15-year support level against the dollar. This is probably the most important chart investors should focus on. The next phase of global currency wars may have begun.

We have written previously that Japan?s QE and the associated yen weakness could trigger a re-run of the 1997 Asian crisis, only this time sucking in the Chinese renminbi. The yen has just broken below a key long-term support and after a brief technical pull-back, its decline is likely to accelerate. This will trigger a wave of profit-crushing deflation flowing from east to west. Andrew Lapthorne has just written a great note on Japanese equities. He says yen weakness, not corporate self-help, is the key to Nikkei outperformance, with Germany looking particularly vulnerable. It looks as if yen weakness is what we’ve now got!

Staring long and hard at the Yen/$ chart, I think that, in the current circumstances, the yen/$ will head to 120 pretty quickly – perhaps after a short reinvigorating retracement. And, if the dollar’s ascent is given extra impetus by the DXY also breaking out, a decline in the yen below Y120 will see an end to its 30-year uptrend – a trend that has relentlessly exported deflation from the west to Japan. Sound far-fetched? One of the few things I have learnt over 30 years in this industry is that when traders decide the yen/US$ starts to move it can jump by Y10 or Y20 very, very quickly indeed.

So for all those who missed it, here it is again, because it explains not only where the Yen is headed next, but why, sadly, this could well be the end of Japan and the mirage of a recovery that has had everybody hypnotized for the past 6 years.

Which incidentally has nothing to do with stocks or bonds, and everything to do with all-important FX (which just happens to drive all correlation and risk pairs around the globe thanks to the far greater embedded leverage in FX, and is why all “modern” traders focus almost entirely on the USDJPY and EURUSD).

Specifically, as SocGen’s Albert Edwards notes “we show on the front page chart what I believe to be the key chart investors should be focusing on at present. It shows the yen breaking down against the US dollar. This may be more than just a strong dollar story on the back of Fed tightening however, as it seems the yen has now also broken key support levels against the euro. This is a weak yen story. Though there are good fundamental explanations for recent dollar strength vis-à-vis both the yen and the euro, often commentators like to find a fundamental story to fit market events even when price movements have occurred without any clear fundamental explanation ? for we teenage scribblers (as ex-UK Chancellor Nigel Lawson dismissively called us) all have to fill those column inches of commentary.”

Wait, Albert is now a chartist? So it would appear, with a few large caveats:

Sometimes it is very clear to me that instead of fundamentals driving prices, it is the charts or technicals that are important. Hence I have long been an advocate of keeping one eye on the charts to see if a major support or resistance has been broken. The very fact that the markets contain so many followers of technical analysis means that the soothsaying of chartists can actually be self-fulfilling. Nowhere is this more true than in the world of foreign exchange (FX) trading where fundamentals often play a peripheral role, even in the medium term. And in a world where momentum investing has become more ?fashionable?, FX is the one area where a clear market trend is especially seized upon with relish.
We couldn’t agree more, since we ourselves enjoy point out, more often than not, when various algos activate momentum ignition strategies in the USDJPY to push the broader S&P 500 above (never below) key resistance levels. In fact, it was on Zero Hedge where we pointed out last night the extreme oversold level of the Yen. Edwards, however says to ignore this, and instead to focus on what may be historic weakness in the Yen, which in turn will clobber the global economy.

… if I am right and the yen runs sharply lower from here, then this will spell real trouble for the global economy. (Do not be fooled if there is now a pause in yen weakness or even a partial retracement from these levels, as the rapidity of recent moves means the yen is now extremely oversold against the dollar ? i.e. the daily RSI=88. This should be the pause that reinvigorates the new trend).
Why does a rapidly weakening yen spell trouble for the global economy?

First, because the Chinese economy will see a further rise in its already strong real exchange rate, especially if other Asian currencies are pulled down with the sliding yen. This will hurt the Chinese economy which, from August data, appears to be weakening again. The strengthening renminbi will also exacerbate deflationary pressures further.

Second, a weak yen spells trouble for the west as a wave of deflation washes in from the rapidly devaluing east. This reverses a decade long trend. I believe that profits growth is so anaemic in the west that this monetary tightening via strengthening exchange rates could in itself be sufficient to send US and European profits into outright decline and subsequently their economies into recession (via a contraction in the investment spending). That is why this FX technical break is so important
That’s what could happen. Here is why Edwards believes, it will happen.

We have long believed that investors ignore Japan at their peril. Time and time again, investors have missed major global market trends that have been catalysed by Japan. We have felt for some time that a fragile Chinese economy could be pushed over the edge by a further yen devaluation – in many ways a replay of the Asian crisis of 1997. And just as the Chinese real economy data has taken a turn for the worse in August, the yen has slipped below a key 15-year support level against the dollar. This is probably the most important chart investors should focus on. The next phase of global currency wars may have begun.

We have written previously that Japan?s QE and the associated yen weakness could trigger a re-run of the 1997 Asian crisis, only this time sucking in the Chinese renminbi. The yen has just broken below a key long-term support and after a brief technical pull-back, its decline is likely to accelerate. This will trigger a wave of profit-crushing deflation flowing from east to west. Andrew Lapthorne has just written a great note on Japanese equities. He says yen weakness, not corporate self-help, is the key to Nikkei outperformance, with Germany looking particularly vulnerable. It looks as if yen weakness is what we’ve now got!

Staring long and hard at the Yen/$ chart, I think that, in the current circumstances, the yen/$ will head to 120 pretty quickly ? perhaps after a short reinvigorating retracement. And, if the dollar’s ascent is given extra impetus by the DXY also breaking out, a decline in the yen below Y120 will see an end to its 30-year uptrend – a trend that has relentlessly exported deflation from the west to Japan. Sound far-fetched? One of the few things I have learnt over 30 years in this industry is that when traders decide the yen/US$ starts to move it can jump by Y10 or Y20 very, very quickly indeed.
Remember that “shocking” CPI print from last week? If the SocGen strategist is right, prepare for many more such “stunners” as Japan makes deflation-exporting its only business model, one which could well crush the economies of Europe, China, and the US… and Japan! Case in point: recall what just happened to Sony last week. But the all important offset, a rising global stock market, should make it all better at least until the entire economic base is so hollowed out, not even algos can dismisses the record divergence between stock market myth and economic reality.

Edwards’ bottom line: “If a clear break in the yen downwards against both the dollar and euro is occurring, not only will this spell trouble for the beleaguered Chinese economy and exacerbate deflation in the west, but it will also break the spell of German economic dominance.”

* * *

And here is what Albert told us moments ago:

The amazing thing is how little interest there is with western investors about Japan and how it effects US or European portfolios

Notwithstanding the fact that it is the 3rd biggest economy in the world by a long way (the same size as Germany and France added together if you look at it the right way ie current exchange rates rather than PPP)

Little understanding out there what yen devaluation means for Chinese renmimbi and how they will be forced to devalue too

ECB money printing will never be able to compete with Japn. The euro might be going down v the dollar but it will be going up against theyen

Little understanding how, not only will eurozone be going into recession and deflation but that Germany will be the weakest economy in zone. Once Germany’s budget deficit starts to rise sharply as a result of their recession the new mad balanced budget act will kick in and they will be cutting spending aggressively. Expect the eurozone to disappear down a black hole!

New British government threats that a Christian school, which previously was rated “good” and “excellent,” may be closed if it doesn’t promote “other faiths” are based on new regulations that need to be reviewed, according to school officials.

WND reported the U.K.’s official education inspector told an independent Christian school that it is out of step with “British values” prescribed by the government and must invite someone from another faith, such as a Muslim imam, to lead assemblies or it risks being closed.

The threat comes amid a series of new school inspections imposed by the government in response to a “Trojan horse” scandal in which several public schools in Birmingham, England, were taken over by Muslim managers who imposed Islamic education standards.

The U.K.’s Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills, known as Ofsted, then established new rules requiring the active promotion of “British values” such as tolerance.

Consequently, the government sent a letter to Trinity Christian School in Reading that it was failing to “meet the new requirements for the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of pupils.”

But that was only months after the government’s inspection of the program found the school “good” in most categories.

And on the topic at hand, the government report, as of November 2013, said: “The provision for pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is excellent. Every care is taken to provide pupils with plentiful opportunities to enhance their spiritual understanding and development through the biblically based curriculum and daily Christian assemblies that are in keeping with the ethos of the school. … Pupils are well prepared for life in modern, multicultural, democratic British society through the teaching of the Christian principle to ‘love thy neighbor’ as found for example in the teaching of the biblical story of the Good Samaritan.”

The nonprofit British charity Christian Institute has said it may mount a legal challenge to the changes.

Why Rome is so important is it’s become an address by which people are projecting perhaps on to Pope Francis, the Catholic Church, but again the archetype of Saint Francis, who stood for peace, and was courageous enough to go, in the 13th century during the crusades, to reach out to a sultan – that archetype is actually interestingly been invoked. So I believe that a number of the world’s religious leaders are dropping through Rome more than ever before, and appealing for that type of neutral brokerage, a third side…..you’re seeing hopeful signs of people reaching out, courageous stands for peace and renunciation of violence….”

There are bits and pieces and streams of interfaith laws that talk about protection of people and religion but in fact it’s not working.

The news that some of the prisoners leaving Guantanamo are joining militant forces may complicate President Barack Obama’s inaugural promise in 2009 to shut down the facility, which was opened in the wake of the NWO 9/11 attacks.

A senior administration official said earlier this month that The NWO Antichrist Obozo 911 Ebola POTUS Clown is considering the use of Crypto Fascist 666 executive power to override a congressional ban on bringing Guantanamo Bay detainees to the United States, which would allow him to achieve his goal of closing the detention facility.

ISIS is urging supporters in the West to kill civilians by any means possible – including using Ebola as a chemical weapon and stabbing people with poisoned needles, a senior Spanish politician claims.

Mr Martinez, the second in command in Spain’s interior ministry, said investigators had identified ‘many examples’ of threats to use Ebola as a chemical weapon. He pointed out three specific cases in which aspiring jihadis ‘linked to ISIS’ had used internet chat rooms to seriously discuss the viability of harnessing the deadly virus and other toxins as part of a new terrorism offensive, according to Spain’s RTVE media company.

One conversation, identified as having taken place between ISIS sympathisers in mid-September, referred to ‘the use of Ebola as a poisonous weapon against the United States,’ he claimed.
Another conversation reportedly saw militants working out how best to employ ‘deadly chemical products’ they had stolen from laboratories.

Tom Freiden, who heads the Centers for Disease Control and President Obama want you to have Ebola, and so they’ve ushered in into the United States says a Georgia congressman.

After suggesting that President Obama may want Americans to contract the Ebola virus, Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga., told Rick Wiles of “Trunews” yesterday that the decision to send U.S. military service members to West Africa on a relief mission may end up bringing the Ebola epidemic back to the U.S.

“Barack Obama’s using the military to actually expose them which could expose further people across this country,” he said.

Broun added that the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other military officials should have defied orders to organize a military operation in West Africa…

The congressman also called CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden an “incompetent boob” who “needs to be removed ASAP”…

As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.

10 If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.

11 These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.

12 This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.

13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

14 Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.

15 Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.

16 Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.

17 These things I command you, that ye love one another.

18 If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.

19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.

20 Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.

21 But all these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they know not him that sent me.

22 If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloak for their sin.

23 He that hateth me hateth my Father also.

24 If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father.

25 But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause.

Jesus told this ·story [parable] to some people who ·thought they were very good [were confident of their own righteousness] and ·looked down on [scorned; despised] everyone else: 10 “Two men went up to the Temple [courts] to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector [C despised by their fellow Jews because they worked for the hated Romans and were notorious for extortion]. 11 The Pharisee ·stood alone and prayed [or stood and prayed about himself], ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—thieves, ·cheaters [evildoers; unrighteous people], adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week [C Pharisees commonly fasted on Monday and Thursday], and I ·give one-tenth of [pay tithes on] everything I get!’

13 “[L But] The tax collector, standing at a distance, would not even ·look up [L raise his eyes] to heaven. But he beat on his chest [C a sign of sorrow and remorse] and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ 14 I tell you, when this man went home, he was ·right with God [justified], ·but the Pharisee was not [L rather than that (other) man]. [L Because] All who ·make themselves great [exalt themselves] will be made humble, but all who make themselves humble will be ·made great [exalted].”

“Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees,” he said. “Wait until we mark with a seal the foreheads of those who serve our God.”

And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.

2 And I saw the seven angels which stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets.

3 And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne.

4 And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel’s hand.

5 And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the altar, and cast it into the earth: and there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake.

6 And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound.

7 The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.

A gentle reminder – Blackstone’s Larry Fink met Shinzo Abe two days ago… (the same Blackstone that warned of carnage if selling ever begins in corporate bond land)… clearly the Japanese panicked!

Welcome to your fundamental-driven markets!! The farce is almost complete. The day after The Fed stops QE, The BoJ raises its bond AND STOCK buying program!!!!

In a surprise move given all the recent congratulatory bullshit from Abe and Kuroda on breaking the back of Japan’s deflation and bring about recovery (forgetting to mention record high misery index, surging bankruptcies and a crushed consumer), the Bank of Japan (by a 5-4 vote) raised its bond-buying program from JPY 70 trillion to 80 trillion… and triple its ETF buying to JPY 3 trillion. This move, on the heels of more confirmation of broader foreign asset purchases in Japan’s GPIF sent USDJPY instantly gapping 1 big figure higher to 110.30 and Nikkei futures instantly rose 400 points. S&P futures are also surging. Gold and silver are tanking and TSY bonds are selling off.

But while Japan’s eagerness to bet its retirees lifetime savings on GoPro had been well-known previously, it also meant that someone would have to step in and buy the hundreds of billions of JGBs the GPIF had to sell in what over the past year became the world’s most illiquid bond market, often going for days without a single transaction.

That someone, a few hours ago, was revealed to be the Bank of Japan, which in addition to now clearly becoming the only buyer of only resort for Japanese bonds, has tipped its hands that it is going all in on pushing the Nikkei higher at all costs, even if it means crushing the domestic economy, something which even Keynesian “experts” say will be the outcome if the Yen continues to slide below 110 for the dollar.

So for all those wondering why futures are back to all time highs, here is the reason:

ITALIAN SEPT. UNEMPLOYMENT RATE RISES TO 12.6%, MATCHING RECORD
No wait, sorry, that’s reality – something that hasn’t mattered to markets since 2008. Here is the reason, all thanks to CTRL-P:

KURODA SAYS EASED TO MAINTAIN POSITIVE CHANGES IN EXPECTATIONS
KURODA: TODAY’S DECISION SHOWS BOJ’S UNWAVERING DETERMINATION
In other words, several days after Larry Fink mysteriously visited Abe, the BOJ announced it would do everything in its power push the Nikkei into green for the year, which it did with its announcement overnight, and to truly crush the local population’s buying power.

Kuroda also had some truly comedic one liners:

KURODA: DON’T THINK EXIT FROM EASING WILL BE DIFFICULT
And now that Japan has gone all in on runaway inflation, we expect that Abe’s reign of terror to be cut short as finally the people’s anger at this Keynesian madman on top of it all will finally explode.

The good news in all of this is that the desperation is increasingly palpable, and since Japan is about to go pro in deflation exporting to the US and mostly Europe, expect even more violent reprisals from the world’s other central banks and so on until finally it is only central banks left trading with each other. Much like today.

In the meantime, here is what is going on:

S&P 500 futures up 1.2% to 2011.6
Stoxx 600 up 1.4% to 335.5
US 10Yr yield up 1bps to 2.32%
German 10Yr yield down 1bps to 0.84%
MSCI Asia Pacific up 1.3% to 142.2
And the punchline:

Gold spot down 2.2% to $1172.3/oz
Because in the new normal diluting your currency even more is even more negative for undilutable currencies.

A third of ·all the people on earth [humanity; mankind] were killed by these three ·terrible disasters [plagues] coming out of the horses’ mouths: the fire, the smoke, and the sulfur. 19 The horses’ ·power [authority] was in their mouths and in their tails; their tails were like snakes with heads [12:9; Gen. 3:1–7], and with them they ·hurt [damaged; injured; wounded] people.

20 The ·other [rest of the] people who were not killed by these ·terrible disasters [plagues] still did not ·change their hearts and turn away from what they had made with their own hands [L repent from the works of their hands]. They did not stop worshiping demons and idols made of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood—things that cannot see or hear or walk [Ps. 115:4–7; 135:17; Jer. 10:1–16]. 21 These people did not ·change their hearts and turn away from [repent of] murder or ·evil magic [sorcery], from their ·sexual sins [fornication] or stealing.

Most people in the English-speaking parts of the world missed Putin’s speech at the Valdai conference in Sochi a few days ago, and, chances are, those of you who have heard of the speech didn’t get a chance to read it, and missed its importance. (For your convenience, I am pasting in the full transcript of his speech below.) Western media did their best to ignore it or to twist its meaning. Regardless of what you think or don’t think of Putin (like the sun and the moon, he does not exist for you to cultivate an opinion) this is probably the most important political speech since Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech of March 5, 1946.

The Russian blogger chipstone summarized the most salient points from Putin speech as follows:

1. Russia will no longer play games and engage in back-room negotiations over trifles. But Russia is prepared for serious conversations and agreements, if these are conducive to collective security, are based on fairness and take into account the interests of each side.

2. All systems of global collective security now lie in ruins. There are no longer any international security guarantees at all. And the entity that destroyed them has a name: The United States of America.

3. The builders of the New World Order have failed, having built a sand castle. Whether or not a new world order of any sort is to be built is not just Russia’s decision, but it is a decision that will not be made without Russia.

4. Russia favors a conservative approach to introducing innovations into the social order, but is not opposed to investigating and discussing such innovations, to see if introducing any of them might be justified.

5. Russia has no intention of going fishing in the murky waters created by America’s ever-expanding “empire of chaos,” and has no interest in building a new empire of her own (this is unnecessary; Russia’s challenges lie in developing her already vast territory). Neither is Russia willing to act as a savior of the world, as she had in the past.

6. Russia will not attempt to reformat the world in her own image, but neither will she allow anyone to reformat her in their image. Russia will not close herself off from the world, but anyone who tries to close her off from the world will be sure to reap a whirlwind.

7. Russia does not wish for the chaos to spread, does not want war, and has no intention of starting one. However, today Russia sees the outbreak of global war as almost inevitable, is prepared for it, and is continuing to prepare for it. Russia does not war—nor does she fear it.

8. Russia does not intend to take an active role in thwarting those who are still attempting to construct their New World Order—until their efforts start to impinge on Russia’s key interests. Russia would prefer to stand by and watch them give themselves as many lumps as their poor heads can take. But those who manage to drag Russia into this process, through disregard for her interests, will be taught the true meaning of pain.

9. In her external, and, even more so, internal politics, Russia’s power will rely not on the elites and their back-room dealing, but on the will of the people.

In this speech, Putin abruptly changed the rules of the game. Previously, the game of international politics was played as follows: politicians made public pronouncements, for the sake of maintaining a pleasant fiction of national sovereignty, but they were strictly for show and had nothing to do with the substance of international politics; in the meantime, they engaged in secret back-room negotiations, in which the actual deals were hammered out. Previously, Putin tried to play this game, expecting only that Russia be treated as an equal. But these hopes have been dashed, and at this conference he declared the game to be over, explicitly violating Western taboo by speaking directly to the people over the heads of elite clans and political leaders.

To these nine points I would like to add a tenth:

10. There is still a chance to construct a new world order that will avoid a world war. This new world order must of necessity include the United States—but can only do so on the same terms as everyone else: subject to international law and international agreements; refraining from all unilateral action; in full respect of the sovereignty of other nations.

To sum it all up: play-time is over. Children, put away your toys. Now is the time for the adults to make decisions. Russia is ready for this; is the world?

Yesterday’s record-breaking surge in the Ruble appears, as we warned, to have been front-running today’s rate-hike announcement… and despite its surprise size, it is disappointing the market. The 5%-plus swing higher in the Ruble yesterday has been notably retraced as the Russian currency plunges (biggest drop in almost 6 years) after the central bank hiked rates 150bps (expectations were broadly of a 50bps hike) but it appears the ‘whisper’ number was a 200bps hike and a shift in FX policy to more active intervention. The inituial rip rally instantly faded and despite low liquidity due to Russian holidays, USDRUB is back over 43 – which would be a new record low close if it holds.

For the second time in a week, a vessel due to go to space has crashed. As SpaceFlightNow reports, Virgin Galactic is reporting its SpaceShipTwo suborbital rocket plane experienced an “in-flight anomaly” on a powered test flight over California’s Mojave Desert on Friday. Two pilots were believed to be aboard SpaceShipTwo, according to the scanner discussion. SpaceShipTwo test flights customarily carry two pilots.

According to scientists from NASA and NOAA, the Antarctic ozone hole reached its annual peak on September 11 with the size of 24.1 million square kilometers (93 million square miles). Overall, the 2014 ozone hole is smaller than the large holes of the 1998–2006 period, and is comparable to 2010, 2012, and 2013.

For at least 27 minutes, the SIP which processes Tape A and Tape B stocks was not working properly. This means that any dark pool, stock exchange or retail broker which relies on the SIP for public quotes was pricing off of incorrect quotes. Of course, any firm which pays for exchange direct feeds was still pricing off of accurate information. Therefore, for at least 27 minutes, an “information asymmetry” existed. You may remember the term “information asymmetry” from last year’s Nasdaq SIP outage when the CEO of Nasdaq said:

“We knew professional traders had access to individual data feeds, but the traditional long investor, retail investor now didn’t have the same information, because of that, we halted the market. The high frequency firms would have access to proprietary feeds from individual exchanges. The consolidated feed which we operate had a problem, wasn’t giving quotes out. We had to halt the market because of that. We didn’t want to have a situation where information asymmetry, as you say.”
?Apparently, the NYSE didn’t think it was necessary to halt trading in their listed stocks. But some dark pools took responsibility and decided to halt trading at their venues. According to Bloomberg , “ITG had to close its Posit dark pool for about 30 minutes and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. briefly halted trading in its Sigma X dark pool.” This makes us wonder about all the other venues that did not halt trading yet rely on the NYSE SIP for pricing.

?In addition to possible pricing errors, there was another situation which occurred right in the middle of the SIP outage. At 1:19:19 PM ET, an extremely high number of trades occurred in the E-Mini futures contract. According to Nanex, there were 15,263 contracts that traded during this second. Almost immediately, quote and trade levels spiked on the US equity markets in reaction to this e-mini barrage of trades.

– Were these E-Mini trades placed to take advantage of the misplacing in the equities market?

– Could the E-Mini’s trades have been put through to ignite momentum in a stock market which was already suffering from a liquidity issue due to the lack of correct quotes?

Unfortunately, we don’t know the answer to these questions and doubt that our regulators (even if they knew to ask these questions) would have the data to find the answers. Since the CFTC regulates the E-Mini futures and the SEC regulates the stock market, they maintain two sets of different data. This was evidenced clearly after the May 2010 Flash Crash when it took a Joint CFTC/SEC committee almost 6 months to analyze 45 minutes of trading.

We live in a cross-asset world where high speed traders routinely position multiple asset classes. Unfortunately, our regulators still seem to live in a single asset world. We believe that the CFTC and the SEC should create a Joint Task Force which could quickly be put into action when events like yesterday occur. This task force would be able to share and compare data to determine if any nefarious behavior caused or took advantage of an outage.

One last ironic point about yesterday’s SIP outage. At the exact same time the outage was occurring, an Exchange Leaders Panel ?at a SIFMA event in NYC was just kicking off. The session was billed as:

“This session will explore the competitive, structural and regulatory landscape that Exchanges operate in today, and the challenges and opportunities facing the industry in the year to come.”
No doubt those exchange leaders have some more challenges to address now.

What today’s JPY-carry-trade-enabling Bank of Japan exuberance means to the ‘average joe’…

Deutsche Skatbank, a division of VR-Bank Altenburger Land, which was founded in 1859, is not the biggest bank in Germany, but it’s the first bank to confirm what German savers have been dreading for a while: the wrath of Draghi.

Retail and business customers with over €500,000 on deposit as of November 1 will earn a “negative interest rate” of 0.25%. In less euphemistic terms, they have to pay 0.25% per annum to the bank for the privilege of handing the bank their hard-earned money or their business cash.

nflation has had a similar effect in the zero-interest-rate environment that the ECB and other central banks have inflicted on savers, but this time it’s official, it’s open, it can’t be hidden. Instead of lending your moolah to the bank so that the bank can lend it out to businesses and retail customers for all sorts of economically beneficial purposes, you’re financially better off hiding it in the basement. Grudging respect is due the ECB and other central banks: through the perverse regime of ZIRP, they have succeeded in transmogrifying “cash in bank” from an income-producing asset to a costly liability.

“Punishment Interest” is what Germans lovingly call this. It’s the latest and most blatant step of the central-bank strategy to confiscate in bits and pieces and over time the wealth that prudent people and businesses have accumulated, and that should have re-entered the economy via the intermediation of the banks.

The door to punishment interest has been cracked open. It starts with large deposits and small rates. Then step by step, deposit amounts get smaller and punishment interest rates get larger until everyone gets smacked with it, and no money is save. It’s all part of the time-honored central-bank strategy to flog savers until their mood improves.

Germans don’t get to do this, but the lucky Swiss get to: they get to go to the polls and tell their central bank what to do about gold. A yes-vote will send shock waves through the gold market and other central banks. Read… What the Swiss Gold Referendum Means for Central Banks

Call it Monitoring Universe of Non-Bank Financial Intermediation (MUNFI), Other Financial Intermediaries (OFI), non-bank financial intermediation or, easiest of all, by its widely accepted name, Shadow banking. Whatever you want to call it, the latest just released estimate by the Financial Stability Board of how many assets current exist outside of the regular banking system (and are thus in the shadows) around the globe should explain why these day the one thing central bankers are most worried about is the uncontrolled proliferation of shadow assets (technically it is liabilities, but that is a different discussion). The reason: according to the broadest measure of shadow banking, it grew by $5 trillion in 2013 to reach $75 trillion. This represents some 25% of total financial assets and when expressed in terms of global GDP, it amounts some 120% of global GDP.

We are not exactly sure which is scarier: that total financial assets amount to about 500% of world GDP or that about $75 trillion in financial leverage is just sitting there, completely unregulated and designed with one purpose in mind: to make billionaires into trillionaires (with taxpayers footing the bill of their failure).

And here is why even the report above is woefully underestimating to summarize the epic leverage in the system:

Hedge Fund assets amounted only to $0.1 trillion in 2013, according to jurisdictions’ submissions for the macro-mapping exercise. However, the size of the sector in the FSB’s exercise is significantly underestimated primarily due to two factors. First, off-shore financial centres, where most Hedge Funds are domiciled, are not included in the current scope of the exercise. Second, the Flow of Funds statistics are not granular enough in many jurisdictions to allow a separation between Hedge Funds and other sectors. Last year’s report referenced results from IOSCO’s Hedge Fund survey which provided a more representative picture of the sector. Updated estimates for 2014 are currently not available, but the IOSCO has launched a new survey which should provide an overview of the global Hedge Fund industry. Information is expected to be available in the first half of 2015. However, data from a private sector source (Hedge Fund Research) show that globally assets under management in this industry amounted to $2.6 trillion at the end of 2013. The U.S. and the United Kingdom, which hold the great majority of global Hedge Fund assets, published results from national Hedge Fund surveys in 2014. In the case of the United Kingdom, the Financial Conduct Authority’s report shows that approximately $470 billion of Hedge Fund assets were managed in the United Kingdom. While data collected by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) show that registered investment advisors managed $5 trillion of Hedge Fund assets. Note that these numbers are from different sources with generally different methodologies and survey coverage, and are therefore not necessarily comparable.

More than 11 million Americans have IRAs. The average balance, according to a recent study by Fidelity Investments, is about $89,000. That amounts to about $1 trillion in money parked away for retirement. Even more popular than IRAs are 401(k) plans. About 52 million Americans have them, with an average balance of around $86,000. That amounts to about $4.4 trillion.

Could President Obama sign an executive order tomorrow demanding that every dollar in these plans be sent to the US Treasury to pay down the US government’s $18 trillion debt?

Yes, he could. There are all kinds of laws and precedents he could invoke to justify an outright confiscation.

But it’s extremely unlikely that he will. The 63 million Americans with assets in these plans obviously would be outraged by an outright confiscation of their assets. And there’s absolutely no doubt they’d make their displeasure known in the streets and the halls of Congress. Simply put, if Obama or any other president tried this gambit, he’d be impeached in a matter of days or weeks.

That’s not to say that Congress and the president wouldn’t like to confiscate your retirement funds. They’d do it in a heartbeat if they could find a way to do so without enraging 63 million voters.

What they’re doing now, though, is changing the rules for larger retirement plans. Last month, the US Government Accountability Office published a statistical breakdown of IRA balances. More than 99% of Americans have balances of less than $1 million in their IRAs. But about 9,000 Americans have IRAs of $5 million or larger. And 314 Americans have IRAs larger than $25 million. That last number includes the enormous $102 million IRA that presidential candidate Mitt Romney has amassed. These larger plans are definitely in the government’s crosshairs. And since we’re now dealing with the “rich,” no real political obstacles to changing/theft the rules/lawlessness exist.

Addressing the threat posed by Hezbollah’s large arsenal of projectiles, Golan said Israelis needed to understand that “the IDF will not be able to provide the same umbrella [air defenses] that it provided in the South. I assess that we will be able to intercept mainly the rockets and heavy missiles, and less the regular rockets. The biggest challenge regarding the Israeli home front at the moment is to explain that a clash in the North will not look like a clash in the South. There will be many more hits to the home front.”

“At the time of the end, the king of the South will ·fight a battle [L butt] against ·the king of the North [L him]. The king of the North will ·attack [L rush in on him] with chariots, soldiers on horses, and many large ships. He will invade many countries and sweep through their lands like a flood. 41 The king of the North will attack the beautiful land [C Judah; 8:9]. He will ·defeat many countries [L cause many to stumble], but Edom, Moab, and the ·leaders [L heads; or main part] of Ammon will be saved from ·him [L his hand]. 42 ·The king of the North [L He] will ·show his power in [L send his hand against] many countries; Egypt will not escape. 43 ·The king [L He] will ·get [L rule over the] treasures of gold and silver and all the riches of Egypt. The Libyan and ·Nubian [or Ethiopian; L Cushite] people will ·obey him [L follow in his tracks]. 44 But the king of the North will hear ·news [reports] from the east and the north that will make him ·afraid [terrified] and angry. He will go to [L devastate and] destroy completely many. 45 He will ·set up [pitch] his royal tents between the sea and the beautiful holy mountain [C Zion, the location of the Temple]. But, finally, his end will come, and no one will help him.

One of Israeli’s most well-known activist rabbis who pushed for Jewish prayer rights on the Temple Mount was shot multiple times in the chest Wednesday night and is fighting for his life in a Jerusalem hospital.

Israel’s closure of the Temple Mount to all visitors – Jews and Muslims alike – following the shooting of Temple Mount rights advocate Yehuda Glick is tantamount to a “declaration of war,” Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas stated Thursday

Earlier Thursday, Israeli Special Forces (Yamam) eliminated 32 year-old Islamic Jihad terrorist Mu’taz Hijazi of Abu Tor in East Jerusalem, the prime suspect in the shooting, after he resisted arrest. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack shortly thereafter, saying it was “vengeance for what is going on in Jerusalem,” referring to police efforts to tackle ongoing Arab rioting.

The report found that the number of billionaires in the world has more than doubled to 1,646 since the financial crisis of 2009, and Oxfam says is evidence that the benefits of a return to economic growth are “not being shared with the vast majority”.

The influential report is supported by Bank of England chief economist Andrew Haldane and Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. It notes that since 2009 one million women have died in childcare due to lack of basic health care, and that 57m children are currently missing out on any form of education.

The charity, which published the report as part of its new Even It Up campaign, also found that the richest 85 people in the world have the same wealth as the poorest half of the world’s population.

This group saw its wealth increase by a staggering £412m every day in the last year, while Oxfam now estimates that there are 16 billionaires in Sub-Saharan Africa, where 358m people live in extreme poverty.

The city’s first Ebola patient initially lied to authorities about his travels around the city following his return from treating disease victims in Africa, law-enforcement sources said. Dr. Craig Spencer at first told officials that he isolated himself in his Harlem apartment — and didn’t admit he rode the subways, dined out and went bowling until cops looked at his MetroCard the sources said. “He told the authorities that he self-quarantined. Detectives then reviewed his credit-card statement and MetroCard and found that he went over here, over there, up and down and all around,” a source said. Spencer finally ’fessed up when a cop “got on the phone and had to relay questions to him through the Health Department,” a source said.

“Their motto was ‘One Nation, One Religion.’ To achieve their goal, jihad (or holy war) was declared on Nov. 14, 1914 in all of the Ottoman mosques… The main plot was to get rid of all the Christian minorities of Turkey,.”

Atman added that “Denial is a form of continuation of the genocide. It is to be killed twice.”

Hannibal Travis, a Professor of Law at Florida International University, wrote an article on the Assyrian Genocide in 2006, suggesting that “the Ottoman Empire’s widespread persecution of Assyrian civilians during World War I constituted a form of genocide… a deliberate and systematic campaign of massacre, torture, abduction, deportation, impoverishment, and cultural and ethnic destruction.

“Established principles of international law outlawed this war of extermination against Ottoman Christian civilians before it was embarked upon, and ample evidence of genocidal intent has surfaced in the form of admissions by Ottoman officials.

“Nevertheless, the international community has been hesitant to recognize the Assyrian experience as a form of genocide.”

If you wanted to create a religion that almost everyone would love, how would you do it? Perhaps you would change your faith to make it more appealing to a modern world that is changing at blinding speed. Perhaps you would indicate that you are willing to become more “mainstream” on hot button issues such as gay rights. Perhaps you would invite leaders of other religions from all over the planet to come visit you and make it clear that you consider all of those religions to be valid as well.

And all of that “unscientific stuff” about God creating the world in six days and creating mankind out of the dust of the Earth? Well, all of that is just going to have to be thrown out. If all of this sounds vaguely familiar to you, that is because this is exactly what Antichrist Petrus Romanus Pope Francis has been doing.

On the way home from religious education class a few weeks ago, my son and I were discussing the creation story. “It’s just a myth,” he announced, repeating my previous explanation that while the Bible stories contain truth, they didn’t all necessarily happen.
If a 7-year-old can get it, it seems others can, too…

Editor’s note: Heidi Schlumpf is a columnist for the National Catholic Reporter and teaches communication at Aurora University. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

^^^All Catholics that do not now flee their Antichrist Papacy are now measured as the Whore sealed unto The Beast and shall burn in the fire of Hell on Earth …in the few coming years left of this last and final end time prophetic generation. YES THIS MEANS YOU CATHOLIC MORONS!!! YOU ARE A PORTION OF THE PROPHETIC FALLING AWAY, HAVE NO DOUBT!

So just as the market broke 2 weeks ago at the lows.. now it is breaking at the highs… to enable moar highs… 666 PPT has become 666 DTPT (down-tick prevention team)

To ‘prove’ that the end of QE3 is not a negative for stocks and to ‘confirm’ the Fed’s narrative that the economy is surging (despite all the unsustainable one-offs in the GDP print), algos are tearing stocks higher, targeting the crucial 2,000 S&P level… thanks to 2-week old headlines from Japan, a broken options market, and the NYSE unable to report trades… As Nanex notes “this is a bigger event than the 2013 market blackout”

Despite the best efforts the best they could manage was 1999.40 before the reality of a not-broken market kicked in…

Initial claims rose a very modest 3k this week but it does little to change the overall picture of a jobs market where there is no hiring and therefore no firing. Is it any wonder the FOMC is stuck with its hawkish perspective…

4 “But you must ·serve [walk before; follow] me as your father David did; ·he was fair and sincere […with integrity of heart and godliness/uprightness]. You must obey all I have commanded and keep my ·laws [statutes; decrees] and ·rules [regulations; judgments]. 5 If you do, I will ·make your kingdom strong [L establish the throne of your kingdom]. This is the promise I made to your father David—·that someone from his family would always rule [you will never lack a man/successor on the throne of] Israel [2 Sam. 7:16].

6 “But if you and your children do not follow me and obey the laws and ·commands [decrees] I have given you, and if you serve ·or [and] worship other gods, 7 I will ·force Israel to leave [banish/L cut off Israel from] the land I have given them, and I will ·leave [reject; disown; remove from my sight] this ·Temple [L house] that I have ·made holy [L consecrated for my name]. ·All the nations will make fun of Israel and speak evil about them [L Israel will become a byword/proverb among the nations/peoples]. 8 If the ·Temple is destroyed [L house becomes a heap of rubble], everyone who passes by will be ·shocked [astonished; appalled]. They will ·make fun of you [scoff; hiss] and ask, ‘Why did the Lord do this terrible thing to this land and this ·Temple [L house]?’ 9 People will answer, ‘This happened because they ·left [abandoned; deserted; forsook] the Lord their God. This was the God who brought their ancestors out of Egypt, but they ·decided to follow [embraced; adopted] other gods. They worshiped and served those gods, so the Lord brought all this ·disaster [adversity; calamity] on them.’”

It appears the machines forgot the shift in DST across the pond and started their European close flush a little early. Someone/something decided it was an opportune time to dump thousands of contracts of gold and silver futures this morning – clearly ignoring Alan Greenspan’s advice. Gold ETF holdings are now back at levels first seen in April 2009. Gold’s break below $1,200 likely brought some momentum chasers but Silver is in freefall, down over 5% and back to Feb 2010 lows. WTI Crude also broke below the crucial $81 level…

So this is a precautionary measure in case the phenomenon of negative market interest rates on short term government debt instruments starts spreading further. Needless to say, we take the fact that the IMF feels it has to prepare for this eventuality as yet another sign that the whole world has essentially gone insane.

Good news for the cold-showering, snow-covered Ukrainians… Russia has reached an interim agreement to supply natural gas to Ukraine through March according to Bloomberg. Of course, this will be paid for by more IMF loans (thank you US Taxpayer), pushing Ukraine further into debt and more dependent upon the West.

October 29 (RIA Novosti) – Russia has successfully test-fired a Bulava submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) from the Borey-class Yury Dolgoruky nuclear-powered submarine, the Russian Defense Ministry said Wednesday. The missile was launched from the submerged submarine at a location in the Barents Sea and hit a designated target at the Kura test range on Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula, the ministry said in a statement. According to the statement, it was the first operational test launch of Bulava in line with the program of combat training. All previous launches were part of development testing.
The three-stage Bulava SLBM carries up to 10 independent warheads and has a range of 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles).
Earlier in October, a source in the Russian military-industrial complex said there would be two Bulava launches by the end of 2014, one from the the Alexander Nevsky nuclear submarine in November, and one – from Yury Dolgoruky in October.
In September, a Bulava missile was successfully test-fired from the Borey-class Vladimir Monomakh nuclear-powered submarine.

NATO said Wednesday that it had intercepted a large number of Russian aircraft flying close to European airspace in the past two days, in an “unusual” series of incidents that brought Russian bombers as far afield as Portugal.

The aircraft — at least 19 in all — offered reminders of Russian air power at a time of the worst relations between the West and Russia since the Cold War. Russian military aircraft have significantly increased their activity in Europe since the conflict in Ukraine began earlier this year, with NATO scrambling to intercept aircraft more than 100 times in 2014. But a NATO official said the scale of the latest incidents was the most provocative this year.

A final decision by the French president, Francois Hollande, on the delivery of the €1.2bn warships will be taken in November, if Russia sticks to the peace plan and “fully observes the ceasefire agreement,” according to the French defence minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian.

The Mistral deal is seen as an embarrassment for the EU’s joint stance on Russia in reaction to the war in Ukraine.

Why the sudden rush to defend its national interests in this odd, cold place? Simple: this is Moscow’s in-kind response to a comparable scramble by the Qatar-Saudi Arabia-US triangle as they do all they can to promote the “Syrian passage”, allowing transit of Qatari nat gas into Europe, a gambit which for now has failed.

A number of political, economic and military measures have been taken over the past few years to protect Russia’s interests in the Arctic amid NATO’s increased focus on the region.

In April, President Vladimir Putin said that Russia would build a unified network of military facilities on its Arctic territories to host troops, advanced warships and aircraft as part of a plan to boost protection of the country’s interests and borders in the region.

Over the past few years, Russia has been pressing ahead with efforts aimed at the development of its Arctic territories, including hydrocarbon production and development of the Northern Sea Route, which is gaining importance as an alternative to traditional routes from Europe to Asia.
Russia is no longer even hiding why it is pushing with the weaponization of the Arctic: “By next year Russia will be ready to meet unwelcome guests coming from any direction, after completing a network of radar stations in the Arctic,” the Russian Defense Minister said.

The massive buildup of facilities in Russia’s north is part of the country’s strategy to ensure control of the Arctic. The military is currently rebuilding two northern bases in the Novosibirsk Islands and in the Franz Josef Land archipelago, Sergey Shoigu told the defense ministry’s public council on Tuesday. Military airfields at Tiksi, Naryan-mar, Alykel, Vorkuta, Anadyr and Rogachevo have been scheduled for modernization.

“The plan involves the building of 13 airfields, one land test range for the Air Forces, 10 radar sites and direction centers,” said Lt. Gen. Mikhail Mizintsev, head of the National Defense Control Center, who took part in the session.

Shoigu said the most immediate result of the buildup would be total radar coverage of Russia’s borders. Russia abandoned many of its less-crucial and more costly military installations after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but now wants them operational again.

“This year we will have total radar coverage and in 2015 we will be almost fully prepared to meet unwelcome guests from east and north,” the minister said.

Georgia Congressman Paul Broun, a medical doctor, calls upon House Speaker John Boehner to call an emergency session of the House of Representatives to enact a travel ban on international visitors coming from West African countries with Ebola. He also calls for the immediate resignation of CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden. In Part 2, Future Money Trends publisher Daniel Ameduri and Rick discuss the stark warnings of an economic collapse recently issued by Jim Rickards.

Confirming Rick Santelli’s perspective on the unending ‘easiness’ of the Fed, Hoisington Investment Management’s Lacy Hunt states unequivocally that “The Fed will not raise rates in 2015,” and warns that the US economy and monetary policy “are not on the right path,” in this excellent brief interview. Santelli slams the Fed’s asymmetric policy, coining a new phrase that Yellen is only “weak-data”-dependent and Hunt confirms that “by its past policy errors, the Fed has put itself out of business,” enabling massive build ups of debt, warning that “debt is an increase in current spending in lieu of future spending,” and confirms the truth that rather than deleveraging, “the world is significantly more leveraged now than in 2008.”

Well worth the price of admission… 150 seconds of reality…”The Fed has spawned this ‘buy now, pay later’ scheme of the American consumer… but there comes a point when the ‘pay later’ overwhelms the ‘buy now’… and when that happens monetary policy is basically ineffective”

So when it comes to the Fed’s QE3 generosity to foreign banks, what was the real number?

Here is the answer.

The first chart below shows that since starting in December 2012, when QE3 was formally launched, and continuing through today, the Fed injected some $1.3 trillion reserves with banks, which has manifested as extra cash held by various banks operating in the US, both domestic, but most importantly, foreign.

Small domestic banks, such as your mom and pop regional bank which is anything but Too Big To Fail: change in cash: zero.
Large domestic banks, think JPM’s CIO group, i.e., its London Whale division which used precisely this “excess” Fed cash to try to corner the IG market and blow up in the process: call it just under $600 billion in cash as a result of QE3.
And the winner, with over $700 billion in extra cash added thanks to QE3, is: foreign (mostly insolvent European) banks.
So yes, European banks: feel free to send your thank you cards to the Fed: without its $1.3 trillion cash injection who knows how many of you would have passed the ECB’s “no deflation to model” most recent Stress Test.

A word of warning: let’s all hope that now, with some $1.5 trillion in Fed cash on foreign (most insolvent European) bank balance sheet, or just about half of all QE liquidity injections since the start of QE1, European banks are finally solvent. Or else, deflation, inflation, stagflation, hyperinflation, or what have you, the Fed will be storming right back in to bail out Europe’s insolvent banks the US middle class all over again.

The irony here is that he told us all this while campaigning to get Democrat Rep. Bruce Braley (D-IA)4% elected. Iowans should take note that Joe Biden is asking them to send a member of the same party as the administration that has presided over all these troubles for the middle class. It’s also worth reminding people that Braley is of the same party that has essentially shut down the Senate these last four years, especially since control of the chamber could hinge on the results of this race.

^^^Red tie or Blue …it doesn’t matter, we’re screw’d. Get a clue, Vote 2 Party Crypto Fascism ”IS” part of the Antichrist ruse.

Christian activists had sued after city officials ruled they didn’t collect enough signatures to get the question on the ballot. The city secretary initially counted enough signatures, but then city attorney David Feldman ruled that more than half of the pages of the petition were invalid.

Houston Mayor Annise Parker has received a flood of Bibles — somewhere between 500 and 1,000 according to a spokesman for the mayor’s office — after the city subpoenaed the church sermons of five local faith leaders opposed to the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance, which the mayor signed in May.

Obozo and his progressive-transformationalists have always targeted the desires of groups and turned those into mountain size needs that only Obozo and progressive/Democrat politicians can fill. They cannot function in a country that is free and standing on the Constitution and Holy Bible for direction. Obozo and the progressive/Democrats must have a nation of dependent and obedient ‘Stepford wives.’

We have heard now for many years about the extraordinary rights of gays, Islamics and Illegal aliens. Let us look for a minute at these ‘special’ groups of people. Regarding the gay rights movement…Now, even our compromised Supreme court has voted against our States rights, how God Himself defines marriage in the Holy Bible and what most Americans want – marriage between a man and a woman.

Marriage rights for gays is landing in over half our states now and being slammed into school curriculums all through the UN Constitutional Common Core Government school curriculum. Now, we are seeing more and more the assaults on anyone of difference—Pastors, parents or anyone in media who dares have a different opinion.

Regarding Islam…How many times have we heard that we Americans cause Islam to attack us. We persecute them, thus they have to blow us up and behead us. Really? The truth is known by most of us with any size brain, that the Islamic Disneyland of variety groups are mostly murderous. They target anyone of difference, especially Christians and Jews for torture and murder. They do this because they are obeying Muhammad and Allah, not getting revenge because we terrorize them. How many times have I read and printed from their own Koran chapter 9, which gives us infidels 3 choices. 1) Forcibly convert to Islam 2) Submit to their high tax and slavery just so we can live or 3) be executed by them.

How many times has Obozo said that ISIS and al Qaeda are not Islamic when the truth is they are boldly and completely Islamic, obeying the Jihad calling of Muhammad? As usual, the Islamic in your face – activist groups, play the persecuted – victim card. We are all violating them and their speech. We are to notice nothing and say nothing about Islam re-writing their real history and slamming their religion down our children’s throats through out Common Core school curriculum and the media. Business owners are to have no rights but to submit 100% of the time to the endless rights of Islamic workers who demand a multitude of things while suing if they don’t get their way and playing the martyr to perfection.

Illegal aliens…oh yes that is now hate speech. They are undocumented workers or immigrants…Never mind that they knowingly break our laws, violate our borders, bring in endless diseases, drugs, terrorists and danger to America. With this last planned and orchestrated entourage of 10s of thousands of illegal aliens at the hands of Obozo, buses were shipped in the cover of darkness to cities all across America. Cities and schools have been lined with tattoo covered adult criminals, drug dealers and terrorists masquerading as children. Obozo has enabled his illegal and criminal group to soar by now, defining a child up to age 23.

We are seeing dangerous diseases spread to our children in public schools all across America and some are already dying from these viruses, while Obozo and the progressive Democrats scream about their rights. What rights? They shouldn’t be here. Our children are getting sick and dying. Terrorists and cartel members are going back and forth across the border making billions, while we are insulted and told we hate Hispanics, children and poor people. The cherry on top for Obozo and the Antichrist 666 NWO progressive left is a hoped for numb brained voter bloc<—The majority female(of course votes majority socialist 666) and so called ”African” American which voted 95% twice for Obozo because he’s a ”down low” black Mac Daddy. LMAO. Idiots. ”Content of their character”, yeeeah, um that didn’t pan out at all. Then there’s the immigration of foreign enemies that have every intention of voting for the worst of the ”one of two evils” offered by the Vote 2 Party Crypto Fascist Neo World Order Secular 666.

…but voting Republican is like putting a Red Dress on the Antichrist Monolithic Drag Queen. There will be no political baby born from this failed system, the future ”IS” the 666 seal of Debt …and everyone that accepts the mark shall perish. A vote cast ”IS” the strong delusion of the unbecoming fool(s) at this point. It’s the same thing as showing up to work at zero interest, as an unsecured creditor/bank account holder confirmed by your legal name and assigned government 666 number, evil and stupid. Only Hell bound fools continue to feed the beast that is devouring not only the labor required to secure children but their own security and sustainability. The fact that Washington is not now burnt to the ground at this point, and every stinking banker hung with the political whore of Babylon, is amazing, however, it is prophetic, as in the days of Noah.

Don’t think for a moment that judgment isn’t coming shortly, it is sealed upon all Antichrist fools that accept the short term offer(s) of temptation providing power through deception, human slaughter and theft perpetrated upon this last generation unto the final conclusion sin and death bare upon The Risen Witness. If you are not standing fast and doing no harm, reconsider what has inspired you to be so moved as to cast a vote for one of two evils and continue to forsake your own labor and salvation so the obvious Antichrist NWO 666 deadly threat may have an extra breath before death rewards the wage earner(s) of sin.

And finally – while CNBC’s audience is told what a terrible thing gold is, “The Maestro”, having personally created the financial cataclysm the world finds itself in following a lifetime of belief in fiat, Keynesian ideology and “fixing” one bubble with an even greater and more destructive asset bubble, has suddenly had an epiphany and now has a very different message from the one he preached during his decades as the head of the Fed.

Mr. Greenspan said gold is a good place to put money these days given its value as a currency outside of the policies conducted by governments.
What Greenspan failed to add is that it is thanks to his disastrous policies (subsequently adopted by Bernanke and Yellen) that gold is the “place to put money.”

“Steady as she goes” was expected… having kept the “considerable time” dream alive last month, the FOMC ended QE3 on schedule but remained ‘data-dependent’ on reviving it…

*FED ENDS THIRD ROUND OF QUANTITATIVE EASING AS PLANNED
*FED SEES `SOLID JOB GAINS’ WITH LOWER UNEMPLOYMENT
*FED: UNDERUTILIZATION OF LABOR RESOURCES GRADUALLY DIMINISHING
*FED REPEATS RATES TO STAY LOW FOR `CONSIDERABLE TIME’
*FED REPEATS RISK OF BELOW-TARGET INFLATION DIMINISHED SOMEWHAT
*FED SAYS LOWER ENERGY PRICES TO HOLD DOWN INFLATION NEAR TERM
*KOCHERLAKOTA DISSENTS AT FOMC, SEEKING QE CONTINUATION
And so now the “flow” has stopped; given that “bond buying” did not work, we are reminded of Alan Greenspan’s warning that “I don’t think it’s possible” for the Fed to end its easy-money policies in a trouble-free manner.

The Antares rocket that blew up on the launchpad on its way to the International Space Station last night was using a 40-year-old Russian engine of a similar design to those used during the Soviets’ disastrous attempts to beat America to the moon in the 1960s, it has emerged.

Dulles-based Orbital Sciences, which has a $1.9 billion contract to make eight supply missions to the international space station, purchased a number of the engines which had been mothballed by Russia in the 1970s, the Washington Post reports.

Oct. 27, 2014 (emphasis added): TEPCO says the levels of radioactive cesium in [Fukushima Daiichi’s] groundwater… fluctuated greatly last week… TEPCO says these [groundwater] wells are connected underground with other wells that are highly contaminated [and] believes cesium poured into them with this month’s heavy rains and then flowed out with the underground water. [TEPCO] says this problem cannot be fundamentally solved because the area around the wells thought to be the source of the contamination has extremely high radiation levels and cannot be decontaminated..

A local council has voted to re-open the Sendai Nuclear Power Plant on the outermost western coast of Japan, despite local opposition and meteorologists’ warnings, following tremors in a nearby volcano.

Nilofar is expected to make landfall with a tropical storm intensity on October 31, 2014. It will bring damaging winds, coastal flooding and life-threatening flooding due to heavy rain as it moves inland across southeast Pakistan and northwest India.

Cyclone Nilofar became the third strongest tropical cyclone on record in the Arabian Sea. According to Joint Typhoon Warning Center, Nilofar shortly reached equivalent of a Category 4 hurricane with estimated maximum sustained wind speeds of 210 km/h(130 mph).

US relations with Israel have plunged to new depths of bitterness and hostility as senior officials in the Obama administration decried Binyamin Netanyahu as a “chickenshit prime minister”, “coward” and a man more interested in his own political survival than peace.

The furious assessment delivered in anonymous but no-holds barred comments in an interview with the American journalist Jeffrey Goldberg in the Atlantic underline a state of anger with Netanyahu that is characterised as “red hot”.

The remarks are particularly telling in having been made to Goldberg, a Washington insider who has interviewed both Obama and Netanyahu, and who warned US-Israeli relations were in a “full-blown crisis” that could only get worse after the midterm elections.

“The reasons for this action are self-evident: the continued public calls by terrorist organizations for attacks on the homeland and elsewhere, including against law enforcement and other government officials, and the acts of violence targeted at government personnel and installations in Canada and elsewhere recently,” Johnson said in a statement. “Given world events, prudence dictates a heightened vigilance in the protection of U.S. government installations and our personnel.”

Set in their ways and a six-year relationship, Obama and Netanyahu are not expected to change course— the relationship will not detox. Only new leadership, on one side or the other, can shake a spiral of rhetoric and its real political consequences.

One official told Goldberg that the Israeli leader was a “coward” on Iran and that the Obama administration no longer believes Netanyahu’s threats of a preemptive airstrike on Tehran’s nuclear facilities.

As tensions with Israel escalate over its policies on the Palestinian front, the United States appears to be growing closer to its longstanding rival Iran.

The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday quoted senior US and Arab officials as saying that Washington and Tehran have “moved into an effective state of détente over the past year.”

The warming ties have the potential to dramatically shift the geopolitical balance in the region, as America’s traditional Sunni Arab allies as well as Israel have always been suspicious of Iran’s intentions.

It’s no longer enough for companies to track someone’s activity across the Web by monitoring their emails, analyzing their browsing history, or keeping tabs on their online searches. All that information now needs to be supplemented with data about what someone’s doing in the real world, whether that’s demonstrated through location tracking or through a health application.

British authorities are capable of tapping into bulk communications data collected by other countries’ intelligence services—including the National Security Agency—without a warrant, according to secret government documents released Tuesday.

The agreement between the NSA and Britain’s spy agency, known as Government Communications Headquarters or GCHQ, potentially puts the Internet and phone data of Americans in the hands of another country without legal oversight when obtaining a warrant is “not technically feasible.”

The data, once obtained, can be kept for up to two years, according to internal policies disclosed by the British government. GCHQ was forced to reveal that it can request and receive vast quantities of raw, unanalyzed data collected from foreign governments it partners with during legal proceedings in a closed court hearing in a case brought by various international human-rights organizations, including Privacy International, Liberty U.K., and Amnesty International. The suit challenges certain aspects of GCHQ’s surveillance practices.

It is well known that the NSA and GCHQ closely share intelligence data with one another, as part of a long-standing surveillance partnership. Some details of the agencies’ spy pact were exposed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden last year, including the existence of GCHQ’s Tempora program, which taps into fiber-optic cables to scoop up online and telephone traffic across the Web for up to 30 days.

But this is the first time the British government has disclosed that it does not require a warrant to access data collected and maintained by its American counterparts.

This illustrates two key ontological characteristics of financialized globalization: perpetual instability and a never-ending cycle of boom and bust as capital sparks rapid development in one locale and then moves elsewhere once profits decline.

The scale of global capital is difficult to grasp; trillions of central bank-issued dollars, euros, yen and renminbi are sloshing around the global economy, seeking low-risk profits.

Capital has no loyalty to anything but its own expansion, and the damage it leaves in its wake is of no concern to the owners of capital.

There are even less visible consequences to the globalization of markets, capital and labor. Once goods and services are priced globally, local supply and demand no longer set the local price. As my colleague Mark G. has observed, consumer prices can rise even if there are deflationary surpluses in the local economy because price is set by global supply and demand. As a result, measuring inflation and deflation locally is meaningless in a globalized economy.

This financialized globalization of goods, services, credit and currencies continually creates imbalances that fuel a perpetual instability that gradually impoverishes every sector other than global capital, which being mobile, can exploit the imbalances for its own profit.

Whether it is European banks (Greece and Italy) plunging again, lower-than-expected crude inventories, or expectations of an uber dovish Fed this afternoon, the US Dollar has suddenly gone bidless against the major currencies.

Stocks slid slowly lower into the FOMC statement, then tumbled as no matter how hard talking heads tried they could not find a silver lining in the hawkish tone reflected across near universal sell-side confirmation. Stocks tumbled, commodities tumbled, and the USDollar surged but the Treasury curve flattened dramatially as 30Y was well bid and the rest of the curve offered (2Y surged higher in yield). The last few minutes saw the ubiquitous levitation to VWAP which lifted Small Caps briefly into the green briefly and stocks all ended higheer from the FOMC statement. By the close, the USDollar was up notably, stocks lower, gold down 1.5%, oil up over $82, and the Treasury curve flattened dramatically (5Y +8bps, 30Y -2bps).

10Y Russian bond yields have broken above 10%, trading at the highest yields since 2009 as the Ruble plunges once again to fresh record lows against the dollar. These significant moves come on the heels of two notable headlines overnight. First, German exports to Russia slumped 26.3% YoY in August (down a stunning 16.6% year-to-date with vehicle exports plunging 27.7%) as sanctions batter bilateral trade. Secondly, Rosneft has proposed what is being described as “radical” reactions to the West’s sanctions, which the Kremlin has (for now) denied.

“The ruble weakened to a record for the fifth day on concern Russia will quicken its move to a free float after more than $20 billion of interventions this month failed to halt the depreciation,” Bloomberg reported today, the same sort of line we’ve been seeing for weeks – in an environment when all major central banks have declared currency war on each other.

The dollar has been methodically devalued ever since the Federal Reserve System was created to manage it 100 years ago. Beating down the dollar in an orderly manner is so ingrained no one even questions it. They call it “price stability of 2% inflation.” Other central banks try to keep up. The result is a race to the bottom: whoever gets there first wins. But ironically, you have to try to get there slowly. If not, mayhem breaks out. The good thing is, currencies have no real bottom, and the race can go on for a long, long time.

In that environment, the ruble has been among the winners recently. We’re even told why: “The sanctions bite,” or something to that effect.

But initially, in a nasty surprise for policymakers in the EU and the US, the ruble didn’t plunge when US and EU sanctions were being bandied in March in response to the Ukrainian fiasco. The ruble actually rose against the dollar for nearly four embarrassing months.

There are many losers when a currency gets devalued, but that hasn’t stopped the Fed or any other central bank. They’re beyond this sort of thought. They’re managing a currency! And there is only one direction into which they manage that currency: down. In that respect, Russia is just now winning the currency war. Even if it doesn’t want to.

A threat hangs over the EU: that Russia, pushed to the edge, could stop the flow of natural gas. Eurocrats claim that it wouldn’t be such a big deal, that no one would be without gas. But a leaked report from the German government explains that it would wreak havoc on German industry.

NATO Baltic Air Policing mission is quite busy these days….
According to the Latvian military, on Oct. 28, the German Air Force Eurofighter jets on QRA (Quick Reaction Alert) at Amari, Estonia, to provide NATO Baltic Air Policing were scrambled to intercept seven Russian Air Force planes flying in international airspace over the Baltic Sea.

The German interceptors identified the Russian planes as a large package, made of attack planes and escort, which included 2x MiG-31 Foxhound, 2x Su-34 Fullback, 1x Su-27 Flanker and 2x Su-24 Fencer jets.

Regardless to whether the Russian aircraft were involved in one of the frequent training missions in the Baltics or were commuting to/from the Russian airfield in Kaliningrad oblast, the package on Oct 28 represents one of the largest “formations” intercepted by NATO fighter planes during the last couple of years.

Usually, close encounters involve Russian, Swedish or U.S. spyplanes intercepted before (or after) violating sovereign airspaces. Sometimes, scrambles are required to greet Moscow’s Tu-22 or Tu-95 bombers on long-range training patrols or strike packages involved in (alleged) simulated air strikes on one of North Europe’s states (usually, Sweden).

Anyway, Russian Air Force missions in the Baltic area have surged, to such an extent NATO presence has quadrupled in the last year: from one nation providing four aircraft in QRA at one base in Lithuania (Šiauliai), to four nations (currently Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal and Canada) at two airbases (the second being Amari, in Estonia).

The following information comes exclusively from my confidential sources as well as European news agencies. Do not expect to be informed, in detail, by the American media, about the unfolding crisis taking place in Europe. The American media is intent on promoting the Ebola hype as a prelude to installing complete medical martial law. Nothing can be allowed to break the concentration of news reports designed to promote an obsessional fear regarding the spread of Ebola with the goal of placing the U.S. under medical martial law. Martial law, in the U.S., is a prerequisite condition in order to force America to accept the coming world war. Therefore, the preconditions which will plunge the nations of the planet into World War III will go largely under-reported in the United States until the last moment.

Putin’s Plan B

Yesterday, I reported that Putin has been aligning his new military allies in India, Brazil, Bolivia, El Salvador, Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, China, and even in South Africa in attempt to force the U.S. to prepare for a Red Dawn scenario here at home in the event that hostilities break out. This was Putin’s version of “Plan B” as he obviously was anticipating the loss of control over Ukraine.

After the pro-Western forces prevailed in Ukraine’s recent election, Putin wasted no time in putting an approximate 60% embargo of Russian oil and gas shipments into Europe, via Ukraine. An embargo, much like a blockade is an act of war. And war is largely where this present situation is headed.

The Big Chill

Gas prices are quickly rising in London. Britain’s energy prices have already soared 18% as of this morning with the announcement that Putin is placing an embargo of energy Russian energy shipments into Europe. It is estimated that Europe gets anywhere from 25% to 33% of its energy needs from Russian sources, much of it via Ukraine.

With the onset of cold weather, Bulgaria has already reached a ‘crisis’ point with regard to supplying energy to its people. Many nations in Europe are now in crisis mode. b

It is safe to say that Putin’s response to the Ukraine elections, which favored pro-Western interests, has succeeded in plunging the continent into an energy crisis. This morning, Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Greece, Turkey and Croatia are reporting the enactment of desperate energy saving measures due to the devastating embargo of Russian gas shipped via Ukraine today. These nations have almost no energy reserves.

Major shifts in policy are being witnessed within a mere 24 hours of the enactment of the embargo. Croatia said it was temporarily reducing supplies to industrial customers while Bulgaria said it had enough gas for only ‘for a few days’.

The patience of the Russian energy moguls and bankers is not without limits. Putin is a cornered and wounded animal. As a result, in the coming weeks, Putin’s actions will likely become more erratic and unpredictable.

The Russian money interests will undoubtedly give Putin the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the embargo as a leverage tool designed to bring Europe to the table to negotiate about the future of Ukraine. However, I do not see this going on much longer than a month. The Russian energy sector will not permit a 60% drop in revenue because Putin could not maintain control over Ukraine. Putin’s days could be numbered if this desperate strategy is not successful. Further, NATO is not going to allow its member nation citizens to freeze to death in the dead of winter. By mid-December at the latest, NATO will force this issue to a head.

Meanwhile, in the USA, real pressure now falls on the Obama administration to get the country under (medical) martial law as a mechanism of control and a prelude to WW III.

We know it’s annoying when ‘facts’ and ‘data’ get in the way of a narrative that everyone would love to come true… but history simply tells us that mainstream is simply misled and then squeezed on their short bond positions. Simply put, if rates haven’t lifted by the time the Fed raises rates (if that ever happens) then they never will and the ‘turning Japanese’ meme will be proven correct once again.